The recording also boasts a fine company of singers, with Julia Gooding, Magdalena Kozená, Susan Bickley and Stephan Loges adding strongly to the conductor's vivid vision of the score.

Record Review /
Andrew Stewart,
Music Week (London) / 12. April 2003

With this recording no ears are going to silt up with boredom. . . . Magdalena Kozená glories in her aria "Erbarme dich" . . . McCreesh knows exactly where he's going and why: this is a tight, clean Matthew Passion, exactly right for an age wary of heavyweight piety. I found it most refreshing.

Record Review /
Geoff Brown,
The Times (London) / 15. April 2003

The singing is exceptionally beautiful, particularly from alto Magdalena Kozená, and the choruses are bracing and illuminating ... McCreesh advocates light textures and flexible rhythms, and his Passion fits onto two CDs instead of the usual three. The period-instrument orchestra is strikingly colorful and fresh sounding. There is so much that is new in the sound of this unreverberant "St. Matthew" that it may remind listeners more of Stravinsky than Bach.

Record Review /
M. S.,
Los Angeles Times / 20. April 2003

Some of the singing is exceptionally beautiful, particularly from alto Magdalena Kozená, and the choruses are bracing and illuminating. . . . The period-instrument orchestra is strikingly colorful and fresh sounding.

Record Review /
Los Angeles Times / 20. April 2003

The singers are magnificent as a team, and the effect, when combined with the sleek and nimble performances of the instrumentalists, can be gripping -- giving us a radical idea of what this piece, in its purest form, may really be.

Record Review /
Russell Platt,
New Yorker / 21. April 2003

There can be no denying that McCreesh uses the single voices to great and encouraging effect. The warm intimacy of expression in the chorales is often spell-binding, the lucid realism of the madrigalian commentaries touchingly palpable and the crowd scenes almost crazed, as if one were within the mob. McCreesh's pragmatism also ensures that his quality singers produce a rich tonal body.

The contrast of the solo music with the chorales - which then become the statements of the populace - is dramatically very effective and, I confess, came as a complete surprise to me. This is not to deny or dismiss in any way the many glorious performances that have been given and recorded over the years with choral forces, large and small. The present performance, if it were less good, would be of academic interest only; but it is one of the most wonderful Bach recordings I have ever heard. Paul McCreesh's other Bach recordings are remarkably fine and here as always, in keeping with his belief that much of Bach's music is rooted in dance, he takes remarkably brisk tempos at times. ... What is more important is that it is an immediate and wonderfully vivid performance of one of the greatest masterpieces in the history of music. I could not imagine being without it. ... this St. Matthew is above all a team effort that, in the final analysis, is an eloquent testimony to McCreesh's burning conviction about the way the work should be performed. I am left in no doubt that not only is it a document of the highest importance, but a deeply moving and passionate experience for minds and ears not inextricably closed by tradition.

I absolutely adore this. It was very daring to use just nine solo voices throughout, but Paul McCreesh completely persuades you that it's right and still makes the whole thing sound huge. It's a great piece of narrative storytelling, a compelling blend of economy and passion. Besides being musically ravishing, he holds you on the edge of your seat. More tellingly McCreesh never tells you how to feel.